Golden Pints 2024

Feel that sun
Like a great gold gong that's beating,
Like a brass-bell fanfare greeting,
Summoning the day.

 

Best UK Cask Beer:

I was lucky enough to catch a green hop beer this year and draught Thomas Hardy's Ale which was cool as fuck. But it's Thurstons Horsell Hop that wins. It had that zingy fresh hop taste that makes it beer of the year.

Best UK Keg Beer:

Having been abroad I've suckled at the devil's drainpipe in the heathen manner. And my mate Marek has at times brought keg been over when it's his round. Wonderful human being that he is he wasn't brought up in the faith so doesn't recognise the spiritual peril he is placing himself in by doing this. What was favourite though? Who knows? I don't pay attention to such things. I did enjoy our walk to Rivington brewery though so something from them.

Best UK Bottled Beer:

Carefully selected for me by my favourite nephew Harvey's Tom Paine hit the spot. 

Best UK Canned Beer:

Oh god, cans too. Surely this can't be pleasing to god. The ludicrously waxed can a mate got me for my happy birthday made me laugh and it was filled with an imperial stout which I approve of so Decimus Rusticus from Baron Brewing.

Best Overseas Draught:

Time to go back to one of my trips to a heathen land: the IBD study tour of Ireland. Though it's not totally devoid of beer served as god intended I didn't get any myself and the ones I can remember are the big three stouts: Guinness, Murphy's and Beamish. Though big three's probably pushing it as Guinness dwarfs everything else. It's not my favourite though, nor the sweeter Murphy's. The winner is the more bitter Beamish.  

Best Overseas Bottled Beer:

What have I had this year? Hmmm...I did go to the Guinness brewery so let's have FES, another great beer that sticks it to those think diacetyl has no place in beer. 

Best Overseas Canned Beer:

It's bad enough having to try and remember a British canned beer. I did neck a can of something Polish at the airport though so that's this year's winner. 

Best collaboration brew:

Have I had any? I've a vague feeling I have but I can't remember what. 

Best Overall Beer:

Thustons Horsell Hop.

Best Branding:

Let's go with the waxed can as I didn't cut myself getting rid of the wax.

Best UK Brewery: 

Thurstons.

Best Overseas Brewery: 

Guinness was amazing, it's like a bleedin' city. 

Best New Brewery Opening 2024

Can't think of one.

Pub/Bar of the Year:

The Crown of course.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2024

Can't think of one of these either. 

Beer Festival of the Year:

Hmmm... Woking's gone. No GBBF. Didn't get to Farnham. Oooo...there is the beer festival the Crown has so that. 

Supermarket of the Year:

Waitrose had Golden Pride for less than London Pride so them. 

Independent Retailer of the Year:

 Cobbett's Real Ale is handy when I'm in need of something special so they're the winner again

Online Retailer of the Year:

I actually bought some beer online this year as the special offer on the Fuller's (Asahi) advent calendar was a bargain so they win this one. 


Best Beer Book or Magazine:

The one I've enjoyed the most is Martyn Cornell's Around the World in 80 Beers. I suspect beer list books are the ones that sell but the subtitle "a global history of brewing" sums it up better. It's far more than just a list of beers. There are some fascinating facts in it that I found a delight, I mean who knew the first person to swim the English channel drank beer on the way? Or that the heather ale recipe myth Williams Bros. use is hugely popular in Russia? But ignore the bit about the male Fuggle, there ain't no such thing.

Best Beer Blog or Website:
 

A Good Beer Blog this year.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer:

It should shift to Blue Sky really so I'll go for Boak and Bailey  who are over there. 

Thomas Hardy: My Part in his Downfall

I was going to use Return of the Native for the title of this post but I'm so slow other people have got there before me. I don't know what the book's about anyway, it was Far From the Madding Crowd I was forced to study at school, in all its interminable tedium. It didn't leave me with a high opinion of Thomas Hardy. The man was clearly being paid by the word and milking it for all he could:

“That’s my fist.” Here he placed his fist, rather smaller in size than a common loaf, in the mathematical centre of the maltster’s little table, and with it gave a bump or two thereon, as if to ensure that their eyes all thoroughly took in the idea of fistiness before he went further.”

Dull, dull, dull. 

Thomas Hardy beers on the other hand are a different matter. I was quite partial to Hardy Country when Eldridge Pope still existed and their other beer that referenced the tedious twerp, Thomas Hardy's Ale, has a well deserved legendary status. One of the five bottle conditioned beers still in production when CAMRA were formed it's managed to survive the closure of Eldridge Pope, being contract brewed at O'Hanlon's, Meantime and now Hepworths. 

The last is of particular interest to me as I worked at Hepworths when production moved there. For this legendary beer another beer legend, Derek Prentice, is the brewing consultant employed by the brand owner and we worked with him to bring the beer back again.

Derek during mashing in of Thomas Hardy's Ale

I wasn't doing much actual brewing by that stage of my work at Hepworths but I made sure I brewed one of the batches of Thomas Hardy. Oh yes, I wasn't going to miss that opportunity. Unlike at Eldridge Pope it's brewed as a single gyle and it proved to be surprisingly problematic. At the Ridgeway brewery on the Hepworths site we already brewed a few barley wines so I have to say I wasn't expecting any problems with the fermentation. Sadly the yeast had other ideas.

Fermentation started well but it was a struggle to get to target gravity

We had to throw everything we could at it to get the beer down to target gravity and the ABV up to the strength we wanted. It spent a long, long time in tank. Some of the first batch, made of three brews, was bottled before I left Hepworths but I never saw it in the wild in the UK so I suspect it all went to Italy. After the beer stopped being brewed by O'Hanlons the brand was bought by the Italians of Interbrau who I guess don't distribute in Britain. And as far as I know the Armagnac barrel trial never got beyond the samples I hand bottled so it wasn't distributed to anyone at all. 

The barrel trial

Well, I did get some samples myself. Purely for professional purposes of course, those organoleptic properties needed to be assessed. It was absolutely gorgeous. 

Another batch of Thomas Hardy's Ale was brewed soon after I'd left the company. I did enquire how the fermentation had gone and you'll be glad to hear that lessons had been learned as this time it went fine. The beer's also now got a British distributor and some was even made available on cask:

This did get me doing some searching and I managed to get some thanks to a detour to The Rake on my way to see Alexei Sayle. 

Who is that fat bastard?

I've drunk it from all of the breweries it's been made at but I'd never had it on cask before so I'm delighted the timing worked out for me. It was a great start to the evening, strong and rich it certainly lives up to the name of barley wine. I hope that putting some in cask becomes a regular feature when it's brewed and that the brewing continues for many years to come.